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Speaker 1: Ah, beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to software Radio special operations, military news and straight talk with the guys and the community. And we are live, or we're at least live on Facebook and Twitch. For some reason, YouTube is being h a pay neck at upload this later if I have to, But yeah, man, plenty of news going on for uh those you know who check out the podcast. We haven't done a live stream like this in a while. Being scotto here, I am the producer of Softwrep Radio for you, I always know that there's people who like check out the live stream or new that type of thing. And Jack Murph, the editor in chief of softwarep dot com. Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while since we've done a live stream. I mean I saw you two days ago. Well, we've been doing a lot of podcasts. Yes, we've been doing two podcasts week, which you could of course subscribe to on Apple Podcasts or the people watching the live stream. But we figured we'd do this because, um, we'd like to get questions from the audience. And you know, if there's any of you checking this out, I know that we're doing this like New and East time, not exactly prime time. But if you happen to be catching this, Who're always happy to answer any questions you may have. Um. Last episode three forty six with Jim Morris, I thought was excellent. Um, this is episode three forty seven. I can't believe where that many episodes time flies, that's for sure. Yeah it does. And and so being that Jim Morris was a Green Beret Vietnam era, I think it's only appropriate to mention the death of Michael Healy, Army major general who led Green Berets in Vietnam dies at Uh. Michael D. Healy and Army major general and highly decorated counterinsurgency expert who retired is the top ranking Green Beret and a legend in special Forces. Died April fourteenth at a hospital in Jacksonville floor to He was ninety one. By the way, this is from Harrison Smith at Washington Post. Um and if you read on one of the first Green Berets to achieve the rank of a general. And I feel like I say this just about every other episode at this point, like we really are losing so many of these guys, and that's why we try to take advantage and we kind of interviewing them and getting their story out there back in back in the day. This plays into the interview we did with Jim Morris. Before Special Forces became a branch, it was very hard for a SF officer to make rank and actually become a general. Um. Now it's a pretty commonplace. Why I shouldn't say common place necessarily, it's still difficult to make General refordless, but um, it's much more common than it was. You know, back in the in the days of the Vietnam days, UM, going to Special Forces was basically career suicide. Yeah, that was interesting hearing Jim Morris talk about that last episode where he said, you know, green Berets were not this same decorated brand. There's no there's no career path. It was kind of like a career dead end. Yeah, from for far as people who they're in their mind they're interested in making rank and climbing the ladder and all that good stuff. Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting we talked about it on the show. UM, speaking of like career after the military, it does seem to be that stereotype that SF guys, um Army rangers. They don't always move on transition to the civilian world the way seals do. And there's no like reason for that that you see, like these seals who become CEOs and I could. I mean, I think there's a couple of things involved there. I think a lot of their guys who come out of the army side aren't necessarily show boating quite frankly. Um. But I also think that it has something to do with the culture. Um. And I've said this before, Like in the Seals, it's different because it's like it's encouraged. That's sort of like individual achievement and entrepreneurial spirit. In the army, I mean in in range of battalion, it's like, if you want to do anything that isn't range of battalion, your chain of command basically treats you like a piece of ship and tells you you'll never amount to anything. Um. When I was in Special Forces and I was getting out, I was told that, you know, n c O. We were n c O s and non commissioned officers, and I was told, hey, you know what n c O really stands for? Right, no chance on the outside I've heard you said before. Yeah, So I mean, if you're telling guys that, and then of course they don't achieve as much when they when they get out of the military because they've been told they won't him out to anything that all you can ever be in life is a is a Green Beret or a ranger or whatever. So for those watching the live stream, I'm gonna be kind of checking um comments and all that. If you have any questions or anything like that, here's your chance to ask them. Uh. Please like this, please share it. We love getting a word out about the show, getting new listeners, um, and that's why we periodically like to do these live streams. But biggest news today Ronnie Jackson withdraws as a VA secretary nominee. Uh. This is from CNN. Rear Admiral Ronnie Jackson is withdrawn as President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. His nomination was hampered by a flurry of allegations about Jackson's professional conduct, which, by the way, before this show, we were like, what are those allegations again? Really? Yeah, because I just saw party animals, I just saw the memo, the actual um not resignation, but his his formal withdraw withdrawal from being a nominee for v A Secretary, And it was kind of boilerplate, like I deny all the accusations that were made against me and all this, and yeah, that was when I was like, what allegations? Because I hadn't been following it me either. And then we looked up the some of these articles that have been published about him the last couple of days, and it's a lot of just getting drunk, and it's like, Bro, I want to party with this dude, Donald Probably it seems like it seems like he has a fun time man. Um. You know, go and get some drinks at the White House and we're getting that uparmored limousine that the president has. We'll do donuts in the front lawn. Tokyo drift that motherfucker, you know. Um. Yeah. Jackson said he was motivated to withdraw from consideration because the allegations against him have become a distraction for Trump and his agenda. And then It's Funny Hour writer Alex was talking about this. Then Trump went on Fox and Friends today and gave his opinion to that. Um, I have there been like I feel like there's been so many v A secretaries in the past, yeah, five six years grinding through them. Yeah, and none of them have been very popular, from Shinseki to now. Like I feel like, uh, yeah, you could probably speak on this better than me. But it's more of like a embedded cultural problem at the v A than just who's the guy at the time. Yeah, like institutional problem that they just can't correct. Um. And it probably has to do with like years and years of you know, culture and going to the lowest bidder and all these other problems. I've actually been to the v A here in Manhattan, and I don't really have anything bad to say about them. Um. It's not as good healthcare, it's not as efficient as like private healthcare, but it works, you know, it pretty much seems to do his job at least that's my experience with them. Um. But that's Nonetheless, there are v A hospitals all around the country where I mean you can pull up story after story after story about corruption and medical malpractice, um, all sorts of issues. Um. So yeah, v A has just really profound problems, and um man, I wouldn't want to be the v A secretary. Seems like, you know, like you're just condemned to commit ritualistic sepacu like cut your guts out, you know, like the samurais used to um. You know, we just keep grinding through these v A secretaries. Yeah, and I know the major thing that's always said is we need to fix this backlog and that that that's not something like yeah, like when when I talk about like the the efficiency UM versus the private sector, it's like, man, if you call v A and you try to make an appointment, you will spend two hours getting bounced around their automated call system, like sending you to this department that department. When you finally get to the one you're supposed to go to to make your appointment, I'm sorry the we're no longer taking voicemail messages. Call again later. Yeah. Fuck. Really, I feel like as a civilian, though, that's not that much different than the crap that you have to deal with and just the private I mean, my experience of the private healthcare system is like you go online, you find a doctor you're looking for, you book the appointment online. It takes like five minutes. Yeah, I just know that there's always been a lot of forms to fill out to get reimbursed for stuff. And all that type of crap. Yeah, when the bills start coming and then you have to negotiate with the doctor's office and insurance company, that can be a pain in the ass. Yeah. Well, and and also just I feel like as a whole, they make you fill out a ton of paperwork can be done much more efficiently, but they don't give a shit about efficiency, which I think I've I've heard people in the medical industry even say I think they do that as a way to to weed out Some people are like, I don't want to fill all this out and then they're not even a submit a claim. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, it seems like a lot of those forms they have you fill out or things that you could, like, you know, do via email or something like that. Yeah, except maybe like your social Security number you don't want to put on the internet, I understand, But most of that stuff, and they have like online web portals all the doctors used today anyway, where they send you your medical forms, you know, via quote unquote portals. So why can't you fill out those forms on their quote unquote secured portal zac doc which is great? I do love that. I don't know if I've used that or not. Well, I guess just also being a civilian, I have a different experience. So um this ties into our interview with Dr Leonard Wong. I thought this was an interesting one, and I saw that our friend Amber Smith, who we just had on UM Army Helicopter Pilot UH put this out there on Twitter and was like, this is great news for the Army. Uh. So this is from Megan Myers and Army Times. The Army just dumped a bunch of mandatory training to free up soldiers time. The Army's top civilian is unloading a pile of training not required by the Defense depart meant in favor of allowing commanders to distribute guidance to their troops on their on their terms. According to a series of memos released in April. The guidance is part of a larger plan to cut the administrative burden on units. Army Secretary Mark Aspert told Army Times in December and roll out again this month. Um So here are the things that they're cutting. They're cutting training programs in travel risk planning, system media awareness training and combating trafficking in persons training. UH. You know, you could speak probably more on if if these were necessary in the first place. I mean, they're all kind of like check the block training, you know, you go through you just click your way through some online training module and check the block. And that's what all that online training really is anyway. It's just so the commanders have their asses covered and they're like, oh, he got the training. You know, so if you crash your car, they can be like, oh, well you got the vehicle safety training. Or if a soldier kills himself, I mean, seriously, I mean, this is how cynical it is. You know, if a soldier commits suicide, the chain of command can be like, he got the suicide to wear news training. It's not our fault, you know. And as strange as this sounds, there was a time, and please go back and listen to the podcast we did with Dr Leonard Wong. We go really in depth on this subject. There was a time when you know, if a soldier was looking depressed, if he was having problems in his unit, if he wasn't performing as expected, that his leadership would look at him and as a person and say like, well, I can tell something's wrong with this kid. And the first sergeant when vitamin you know, come on, kid, come into my office and sit him down and he'd pour a glasses scotch and slide it across the desk and be like, what's got you so blue? Kid? Like that sounds surreal today and our you know, are are you know, hyper sensitive, politically correct culture. But this is how the army used to be. There used to be this human element to it, and you talk to your soldiers and you would know your soldiers. Nowadays, you know, even officers come in and their initial counseling is done via you know, it's like a cut and paste form. They have no face to face interaction with their battalion commander. Nobody gives a shit anymore. And this is why I say the problem the military is having is not necessarily political correctness. A lot of people misidentify the problem. There is political correctness in the military. That's a problem, But the bigger problem is corporatization. And we've had this idea that we can institute corporate quote unquote efficiency um into the military ranks um. And this is where you get all this online training module bullshit, all this other nonsense. And we've stacked the deck. We've given these guys so much mandatory training that are our squad leaders don't have time to train, to coach, teach and mentor these young infantrymen or other mos is and bring them up the way they need to be brought up and learn the skills they need to have. Um. And because they're taking these stupid online training modules that do nothing for force readiness, they do nothing to make are military more agile, more lethal. It's just a drain on them. Um. You know. Another example that was brought up to me recently is DTS BELS, the Defense Travel System. So when you go on temporary duty, you come back and you go into this stupid DTS system and you enter all your information and you put your vouchers in and your receipts and blah blah blah. Back in the day, you used to just tell your chain of command or they would tell you you're going on t D y okay, and there'd be a someone in the personnel office would cut your orders, give it to you. Okay. You come back, you throw a bunch of receipts at them. You shouldn't throw over seats and your personnel people, please don't do that, but you give them the receipts, they do up the paperwork and you get reimbursed. It's all good. Okay. Now do you have this DTS system that soldiers have to slog through and it's one of those things that's designed it's like corporate efficiency quote unquote, So we'll put this burden on the soldier and make him do his own travel paperwork. Does anyone ever look at how much time is wasted making soldiers do this kind of bullshit? And I mean it's not laziness, it's just saying we should have personnel, you know, S one people in the military who do S one stuff. Um, you know, instead of passing the burden onto the soldier and calling it efficiency because it isn't. It's just wasting more time. Um. So this is kind of where we're at with the military right now. And doctor wanged it his sweeping research and white paper with um some other um students graduate students or army work college students. They really did a tremendous job on it. Then you can go look at that paper. It's called um oh ship I think it's called a lying to ourselves and what he what he found and that when he did that research was that not only do we give our soldiers more mandatory training than there are training days in the calendar year, so they're they're at like a hundred and overloaded here. But what he also found, a secondary finding, was that all our officers are reporting up to hire that they are a percent efficient, they're a hundred percent complete on all of that mandatory training, which we know is literally impossible. So what we've done is we've bread and we've cultivated a culture in the military now where it's it became okay to lie, to send up reports to hire and say, yes, we're a d percent in the blue good to go on all mandatory training when we absolutely are not. And what are the repercussions of that? When we um create a culture of lying in the military and it becomes okay to lie to your superiors and say that you're at what are the other effects of that? What does that mean? Um? And that's what his paper explores. So I hope people check that out. But this article and that they're starting to cut some of the mandatory training shows that Dr Wang's research is starting to having a really profound impact on the force, a really positive impact and I'm really happy to see that. That's great. Yeah, and do you think his paper had any effect on this? I think it had a huge effect. Um. I think it went all the way up to the top. I think a lot of middle management, a lot of officers wanted to ignore it and just roll their eyes at it. But I do think that eventually his research was heard and understood, and that there were people, um like the Secretary of the Army um, uh what's his name, Ellsberg? I believe um and UH in the Secretary of Defense, UM, Jim Madis. I think they understand this now. No, it's right here, Secretary, you got it. Secretary Mark Esper, Um, So thank you, Mr Esper. Secretary Esper and UH and Jim Maddie have put this on their plate and they understand that this is an issue and they're trying to resolve it. Yeah, which is good to hear. Maybe we should get him back on at some point and and hear about his reaction to them doing this if they're if they're doing it in the most efficient way, so you know, the change change happened slowly in a big bureaucracy like the Department of Defense. Um, it'll I think you'll start to see the soldier will start to feel an impact over the next you know, six to twelve months. Um, it'll be interesting to gauge that and see, like, have you has your time been freed up? Do you have time to train your soldiers? Now? Yeah? The first great question we have here from brad Manning, and I guess not to be confused with the Bradley mann like the Bradley Manning now Chelsea Manning, unless Chelsea Manning happens to be watching us. Where can I get the shirt Jack is wearing soft rep dot Com. You know what's the funny thing. I have a soft Rep on time on target shirt. I do not have the software. Probably should you probably should, one of the guys on the show, since you produce every single episode. Yeah, so go to soft rep dot com. Uh, shameless plug since you mentioned it, it's right on there. And they're great shirts. I love the way all the soft Rep shirts fits. So that is the answer, bred Um. And like I said, I assume you're not the bread Bradley Manning. Um. All right, this is a great article that Kurt Troeder, a writer did on soft Rep. IRAQ begins air strikes in Syria against ISIS, and Kurt is great on this stuff because of the fact that he's been a volunteer at the pesh Merga, has spent so much time over there. Yeah, so he he knows his stuff. Um, and you should check this out. It's right there, Like I said the title, if you want to look it up. Is Iraq begins air strikes in Syria against ISIS UH. This past week, the Iraq Air Force began carrying out coordinated air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria alongside the Syrian government. A tweet from the Iraqi Air Force read, based on the orders from a Body, the Commander in Chief, our air forces by using F sixteens bombarded ISIS terrorist positions in Syria on the border with the Rock on Thursday, hater all a body. Iraq's Prime minister has hinted that Iraqi military forces may soon be aiding and combating terrorism in Syria earlier this month, According to Brigadier General Yahia Rasul of the Iraqi Air Force, the air strike missions were based out of Iraq and done cross border with the Syrian government's permission. The United States led anti Islamic State Coalition UH provided target intelligence for the strikes for the operational forces. However, the mission was planned and executed by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command. The Iraqi Air Force provided a video later uh that featured an F sixteen fighter jet adorned with a Rocky flag on the tail, staging for a takeoff on a military flight line. Prime Minister hater A A body has tweeted our heroic air force carried out on Thursday in Syria near Iraq border Iraqi border deadly air strikes against Dash's terrorists gangs. Iraq has yet to disclose specific target locations on their exact content contents. A body had ordered air strikes to be carried out in Syria last year in February against ISIS positions as well. Despite a body declaring victory over the Avon state last December, as Massoul was liberated by Iraqi military forces, the tacks from sleeper cells and pockets resistance seem to have increased the alan Bar province in Iraq and deer As azora am I, saying that correct Or region have experienced militant based attacks over the past week. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Kirk Cook has been a hotbed for ISIS based in surgeon activity as well, given its current state of dispute by local nationals. Welcome to the party, pal, Yeah, well, yeah, you work. You've been talking about this on on episodes. I mean, this is handing the power to the Iraqi indigenous population. And well, yeah, in a sense, I don't know if we green lithum or not um. Of course, the um perspective from you know that that so called Arab street is always that America green lithusts. You know, every action Turkey takes, for example, they're like, oh well America, okay, this whether we did or not um, And that's just part of the difficulty in dealing with that region. But it's interesting. You also got the Shia militia's uh that went from Iraq and crossed over into Syria and mucking around. It's what a ship show, all right. I see we're getting a few questions here, so I'll get to this one last article and then um we'll get to your questions. So if you have anything that you want to ask, keep it coming to the live stream right now and like it, share it and um, yeah, any any questions at all. I mean we rarely get to do these, so it doesn't have to be on topic. Um. You know, we we rarely get to do these q and a s, so we're happy to answer anything you have for the podcast or for jack Um or for me. No, this is from South China Morning Post. It's interesting because no one's really reporting on it that you found this. Uh, you know, I don't even know much about the South China Morning Post as a source. I actually, yeah, So here's what the article is. North Korea's nuclear test site has collapsed, and that maybe why Kim Jong un suspended tests. The mountains collapse after a fifth blast last fall has led to the creation of a massive chimney that could leak great you active fall out into the air. Researchers have found North Korea's a mountain nuclear test site has collapsed, but in China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure. To separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue of confirmed which is pretty serious. Um, the collapse after five nuclear blasts maybe why North Korean leader Kim Jong un declared on Friday that he would freeze the Hermit States nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site. One researcher said, the last five of pyongyang six nuclear tests have all been carried out under a mount man tap at the Pungyr pungy Would you say that would be the big bang in Pyongyang? You mentioned it At the pungy Re nuclear test site in North Korea's northwest, our group of researchers found that the most recent blast tour open a hole in the mountain, which then collapsed upon itself. A second group concluded that the breakdown created a chimney that could allow radioactive fall out from the blast zone below to rise into the air. So this is crazy to hear just from a health perspective. People in China. Also, you know Kim Jong un covering his day. So is it? Is it true or is it a deception? And this is part of um, you know, sort of international gamesmanship or brinksmanship. Um. You know, I think they'll be able to confirm it via satellite and via um not not Geiger counters, but you know they have sensors that can test for you know, nuclear tides and all that good stuff. Then see if radiation is really leaking out of there. So I mean I think technically it'll be able to be confirmed, UM for sure one way or the other eventually. UM. But this would be interesting because it doesn't mean that their nuclear facility is defunct now because they destroyed it accidentally. Uh. And that's why they're like, Okay, yeah, we'll suspend nuclear testing because they can't test anymore. So it's like it's already shut off, but now you're gonna make it seem as if you're making a concession. Your Trump will take credit for sure. Sure, and we can get into all of that, but I mean any administration would take credit for it. UM. The So the thing about nuclear underground nuclear testing, I mean, it's the designed to control the radiation, but there's also a theory that you can decouple a nuclear explosion um from uh what would be like seismographs. So if you have it in a big enough underground cavity, UM, then you can test nuclear weapons inside that cavity and it won't show up on on seismic sensors around the world as a nuclear blast. Uh. And I had a professor, UM, Professor Richards, who was a nuclear seismologist, and UM, now I kind of asked him, I was like, you know, what do you make of that? Theory, and you know how academics they won't say as like someone like I would like, that's total bullshit. Man, he's a very astute person. Um and and but the basically in a very academic way, he said, I don't necessarily buy that argument, you know. And uh so it's probably not true that you can decouple a nuclear explosion like that. But nonetheless they were testing underground. Um I mean, how many how many nuclear detonations can you do in the underground cavity before you collapse it. I mean, it seems like it's something that's gonna happen sooner or later. Right, It's just it really is scary to think what we're doing, you know, and that that's also goes into I know it's unrelated, but we always talk about um loring or carbon footprint here in America, and you know that we need to have these agreements with the rest of the world, like I don't think China, and China doesn't give it, especially these regimes like North Korea really care and are willing to go on board with doing things that are you know, less harmful to the environment. When you hear about these nuclear tests, it's hilarious. The way we negotiate with some of these countries and try to couple with them or deal with them. Um and just sort of like hand ringing that we do in the West, and like, especially like the the American left. I feel like looking at them sometimes and I'm like, all the things that you value the most, the rest of the world values the least. Like you don't think the Chinese are willing to buy carbon footprints if they The Chinese don't care about environmentalism, they don't care about racism, they care not a damn about LGBT rights. All these things are just like superfluous to them. They do not give a ship from their point is the point of view. They want to harmonize the entire region around the Han Chinese, which the the elite class of that country see them as the master race. There's it's just hilarious. We're not even like thinking of each other on equal terms. Um. And China represents itself as this sort of like positive force for good in the world, and a lot of Americans buy that for some reason, which actually brings us into the I believe is a Washington Post story about Chinese student spies. Yes, yeah, and I had written about that years ago, and people were like, you're a racist, Jack Murphy. How can you say that, How can you say that these Chinese students are or spies. That's just xenophobic. And it's like, no, no, this is really how it works. Like if you're from the mainland, you know, it's quid pro quo. I mean, you're coming back home and it's just understood that you work for the homeland. That's how it is. Um and and all that started for me. I didn't know that much about how how these things work and how Chinese espionage functions. Um. But I was at a class in college and uh I was in so it's a little study group who are studying for a final examin I was with three Chinese students and really nice people. I liked them. Um, but we've gett into talking about like politics and stuff like that, because it was like it was a course in international politics, I think. And I asked them about full on gong, which is very controversial in China. And I asked them, you know, just your opinion, you know, no judgment here, you know, do you think they're a persecuted group or do you think they're really up to no good? And brother, you could have heard a pin drop in that room, like you could hear the second hand on the clock like. And I realized after the fact, is the three Chinese students in that class, they're all afraid to talk because they're all afraid that the other people in the room are going to inform on them back to their home country. And so this story got ignored for a long time. But I see this as a positive development is the American press over the last couple of years has finally started talking about how China poses a threat to America. UM, poses a threat to democracy. China is never going to democratize, That's just a pipe dream. And UM, the Chinese espionage happening right here in America. Finally it's become an acceptable topic for conversation in the mainstream media. So I am glad to see that the Washington Post is picking up on that, and I will issue a correction here. Carlos Figaro Washington says it was the Washington Time. It was the Washington Times, thank you. So according to Carlos, UM, all right, so I'll get to some questions here. I feel like we've covered a lot of news going on this week in the community. UM. Let's see here, Gene Fornsworth, you love what is j I think winning means in the Middle East? What does win look like? So I guess he means from an American perspective, an American foreign policy perspective. I think winning would mean stable governments UM that are at least UM political in nature, rational in nature. UM are willing to engage politically in the rest of the world, rather than UM act as UM terror terror states like we saw in Afghanistan Gaddaffi would engage in acts of terrorism, UM, things like this. UM. The winning might be in the Middle East. It might be some form of political Islam. I mean a lot of people don't want to hear that, but it might be a form of you know, UM, you know, politics informed by Islam, not necessarily Shariah, not crazy stuff like you see in Saudi Arabia, UM, but who are our allies, but a more pragmatic form of political Islam that is willing to engage politically and diplomatically with their neighbors in the region, with Israel, with the United States in the West, and we'll have some sort of you know, give and take and normal diplomatic relations. UM. So I think from that perspective, from an American foreign policy perspective, that's the best we can hope for is stable rational states DOT lean more or less towards democracy. Might not it's not going to be American style democracy, but some indigenous type of democracy in the region. Um, whoever can move the Middle East in that direction will be the hero of our age. Uh, you know, actually accomplishing that as a whole other story. Yeah, yeah, it's very true. Um, And we've talked about in the previous podcasts, like staying there for generations. How do you make an impact? Nobody? Nobody has any answers, I mean, and I don't. I don't have all the answers either. You know, let's just be real, all right, Scott Fisher Ian, I need to send you a list of metal bands to check out. Yeah, feel free softwarepp dot radio at stop rep dot com. Jack looking forward to your memoir. Thank you. Yeah, Yeah, it's uh, we're going into the editing process now, make some revisions, add some things maybe I don't, I don't know. Well, we'll go. We're gonna start getting into that process and going through that nice all right, Brad Manning says he is not that Brad Manning, which is uh oh alright, Mark, Comma, Larry, Am I going to be okay in uh in Turkey on the holidays this year from the United Kingdom. Uh, be careful. Don't don't go to like big public gatherings, you know, I mean, go have a good time. You know. I wouldn't tell people not to go to Turkey. Um. You know, even though I have, I'm probably not welcome there um because of some of this stuff I've done well well, my both my wife and I have done a lot of reporting on the Kurds and we've hung out with different Kurdish groups that Turkey is not does not hold in high regard. Um. But you know, for the you know, the rest of the public, I mean, go to Turkey while you can before that country backslides another twenty five years. UM. I would just avoid like large public gatherings, Like I said, don't don't go to protests things like that because of bombings. But you should be okay, cool, all right? Uh yeah, I don't live in fear. That's you know, if if that's something that you really want to do. Uh. Same Brad Manning, what were your favorite weapon while in service. Oh my favorite weapon. Let me think here. I mean, I was very fond of my SR sniper rifle. UM three three. You can't have one of those in New York. You can't have any of these in New York. I mean the three wind meg very nice gun. Um. I mean the MA Deuce is a classic. I mean that's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot. But I was, you know, uh eighteen bravo, So I got to shoot all the guns. It was fun. You still, you don't really shoot any of those anymore though, I know, because I live in the city, I don't have that many of you know, there's people who travel to p A. Yeah, I could travel every weekend if I was that motivated to go and shoot. Um. If I lived in a different place, I probably would take up some sort of like um, I don't know, competitive marksmanship, you know, or something like that. You know, I know a lot of guys who are into that. It's a cool hobby. I was listening to Kohley on now Air, the guy who works with the n r A on Joe Rogan's podcast, and he does a lot of that, like three guns all that. Yeah, Because he was saying that his dream as a kid was to be a professional basketball player, and he was like, so I'm very into um you know, I guess, including what that athleticism was shooting and he got into it later on life. Really good interview with that guy. I'd actually love to get him on soft Rep. I was even saying, Scott Whittner from the load out room, like it'd be cool to have him on and do like a gear talk type of thing. He's a really cool guy and smart guy. Didn't know I didn't know he's a lawyer. Oh no, I didn't know that either. There's a lot of stuff out there now for people are interested in competitive marksmanship, like all these ipsick competitions, and it seems like that that sport has gotten bigger and bigger, um over I guess over the last decade or so. There's a lot of opportunities out there for people who are interested in taking that up. Awesome, all right, Um, let's see, I don't know who this person is, but Carries and Zandy Nan says, Hi, my brother from another mother. Jack, Hello, Chris Thornton. Jack, what do you think about the escalating tensions between Turkey and Greece? I mean, yeah, the g and c Um. Well, the tensions have always been there right over Cyprus, over these islands and the Aegean. Um. I don't know if I'm prepared to give like a total like geopolitical breakdown of what's happening, but I think it's all emblematic of what we've talked about before. How Urdawuan has these neo Ottomani ambitions and they see the entire surrounding area as part of the new Ottoman Empire. Um. So it's like, man, are they gonna go and you know, wage war against bell Right again? You know, are they going to try to take the city, take eastern Europe? How's that going to go down? Howere? You know, where does this end for Urbiwan? Because it's always a question of what do you do for an encore right if this is your form of legitimacy, this sort of um insane blending of Islamism in Turkish nationalism, where is it going to go? Um? You know, the Greek government I was told was actually the Greek military was on high alert because they were expecting an impending attack from Turkey. I mean, that's insane that these two, you know, two countries in NATO that are ostensibly both part of Europe. I don't want to start I know there's a lot of a lot of tension there. I don't want to start a fistfight about which countries belong in the EU and which don't. I know, you have a bad economy, Greece, it's not your faults. Okay, Well we're moving on. We're moving on. UM. But yeah, those tensions are gonna keep building. And I mean, I think it would be better for you know, some of these supernational structures like NATO, like the European Union, UM, with America playing a sort of vanguard role, to try to step in and try to dial that back now if possible, um, because it's gonna get worse and worse, there's no doubt about that. HM. And then how long before there's a real conflagration in the Aegean and you have Turkish troops, you know, having firefights with Greek troops. Um, all right, Scott Fisher, what's del Gotto up to? I don't know, you'd have to ask him. Uh, let's see what else we have here. Thank you for the softrep T shirts. Oh l l R R guys, thank you for the soft rup T shirts. Oh, they White Reaction Regiment in the Philippines. Yeah. Yeah, we gave him a big box of T shirts. I handed off to UM one of their friends in Las Vegas at the shot show, and they gave me a plaque which is very nice. Is really cool, um uh with some some memorabilia from the Battle of Marrow we um. But yeah, the Filipino Special Operation Asians units are They're really good guys. Awesome, all right, Jared lee uzy question where Jack is someone who has served in both units? Are s F or rangers more likely to deploy in small teams? Uh? Special Forces is much more likely to deploy in small team because it's designed to function as an O d A. A twelve man team is the maneuver element of Special Forces um SO. They're designed to go and work in austere environments and a decentralized environment. UM Rangers are designed to work as a platoon or higher um. You know, you could deploy a platoon, you could deploy a company, you could deploy a battalion. Um. There have been circumstances where like in Panama where the entire regiment deployed and jumped in um SO. Yeah, two different jobs. Different organizational structures. I don't think rangers would ever be deployed as less than a platoon, at least not to not to combat. I can't see that happening alright. Um, and our friend Shannon Miller, who's been on the for US says, sign up for the Department of State travel warnings for Turkey. We'll tell you of the places to avoid inside Turkey. Don't travel to the east in Turkey. So that's that's definitely some good advice. Um Oh, I have no idea what this question is, Michael s Pezel, what you see more places to go back with God? All things are b I have been trying. I don't know what that even means. Go with God, brother, go with God. Yeah, well, if you have anything else, shoot them over you know where. This is kind of a shorter episode because we went over to We went two hours with Jim Morris and this is Facebook Live. So I feel like I should have had multiple rants prepared to like just like a little notebook, like flipping them out, like Okay, here's my rant on this subject. Yeah, but we just kind of wanted to do a news roundup type of thing. Um, as I should mention you guys. There's a you guys, there's only one club out there with gear handpicked by special operations military veterans from several branches, and that of course is Create Club. Past items we've had in our premium crates have been an E d C medikit put together by Benghazi survivor and Army ranger Chris Tonto Piranto, and a ballistic shield insert for your backpack made by cry Precision. Create Club is really stepping up its game right now. It's progresses by putting out custom products that you're not going to find anywhere else. Scott Whittner has been a big part of that. Um, we have different tiers of membership depending on how prepared you want to be, and gift options are available as well. You can check that all out at Create Club dot Us. Once again, that's Create Club dot Us. Yeah. I mean I get the Create Club sent to me and um, it's like grown and leaps and bounds. It's awesome. Yeah, I mean there's some really cool stuff in there now. Yeah. I I've always loved I mean the premium Create especially there's always really awesome stuff in there that's just practical and that you'll be able to use UM for your dog owners. Check this out. You're gonna love this. We just launched Kuna UM. Some of you who have signed up for Kuna may have gotten your first package just now, which is great. UM. We have a team of trained canine handlers picking out a box for your dog each month of healthy treats and training aids and the custom build it for your dog. So it's Kuna Dog, Kuna dot Dog SeeU and a dot d O G. And if you're enjoying that first If you're enjoying that first box, let us know. Sorry, I'm just looking through the comments as well on here. There's just so much stuff coming in. Although we don't have YouTube up, I'll have to re upload to YouTube UM. But we are on Twitch and on Facebook uh. And as a reminder for those listening and watching the live stream, for a limited time, you can receive a fifty percent discounted membership to the spec Ops Channel, our channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews covering the most exciting military content today, which include training cell and we also have the spec Ops channel app developed by Chris in the Philippines speaking the Philippines. UM for iOS Android will be available in June, and that's spec Ops channel dot com and also on the spec Ops channel the new documentary series The Divide. Yeah, they just did the first episode is the first episode on there already, I believe. So yeah, yea. So it's uh, it's me hosting it. And we went into the March for Our Lives protest here in New York City, and um, you know, we interviewed all sorts of people. We interviewed you know, high school students, teachers, um, to run of the mill protesters, you know, people who live in in the city who came out the protest guns. We interviewed pro n r A people, We interviewed you know, the MAGA crew, the MAGA people that make America great again, hats on, including Kanye who's rocket head lately. We did not we did not interview Kanye, but we we made an effort to try to cover as many different side to the issue as we could. And um, the concept of the documentary is just that that instead of you know, hearing it from a talking head like someone like me, Um, are you really a talking head? Though? Well, I could become a talking head if I just like lecture you, if if I, you know, get my cell phone out and I sit in the front seat of my car and I just go on rants every day, I would become a talking head. Um, but you hear from the people who are there, and I think if you watch that documentary, it'll give you a good idea of what type of people showed up at that protest, what their thoughts are, and what they were. Yes, so check that out. The divide on the spec Ops channel, it's spec ops channel dot com. Uh, only five hours a month right now. I don't know how long we're running that. So if you want to join or become a team, remember and you'll get it. Um included wrapping things up here, I see a couple more questions coming in, so I'll shoot, I'll get to those and then we'll call it a show. Chris Thornton, Um, I've posted several articles on Sam Rock Sam Rock, and Jack has written on the issue. So, Jack, do you have any new in full on all the seventh Group guys getting in serious legal problems? Um. I've had some conversations often maybe leave it at that, but no, I don't have any other additional information. I know the unit is trying to grapple with it and deal with some of these things. UM. You know, they got their work cut out for them unfortunately. UM, but we'll see how it goes. UM. All right, Bred Manning once again, Jack Murphy, when you expect to go back out and do more news type stuff overseas and what are your thoughts on Africa? I don't have any plans right now. UM. I have to see what's interesting, what's under reported. UM. I have Actually I want to send some of my writers. They have some ideas about some different hotspots around the world. I'd like to shoot them out to UM sometime this year. I don't have any plans right at this moment. I think the next thing for me is, um actually going on my honeymoon. So yeah, I'm taking a little bit of a k Asian time, going to be in uh in Europe, and then my wife and I are taking our honeymoon. But you know, my my wife is a journalist. I am what I am. We're gonna go to some places that are a little bit off the beaten path as far as honeymoons. We're not going to Tahiti or anything like that. UM. So maybe they'll come back, who knows. Maybe I'll come back with a story from there, um, both to figure out who's gonna be here while you're not here. It would be like a month without you. Yeah, well I can still call in, we can do it like that and calling on sky Yeah I know. Um, but yeah, it will be probably like a month or so, maybe five weeks that I'll be out. Um. So that yeah, that's that. But as far as like, yeah, doing another reporting trip would be interesting. It would be interesting to go back to Syria, to northern Syria again, um, because as the war matures, it's interesting to see how the Kurds evolve in that region and how they're trying to create their own system of governance and will that system of government survive. So it's sort of like the post war environment and what that looks like. Um. But there's a lot of interesting areas in the world, a lot of interesting things going on. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff going on in Central and South America. Nobody's reporting on its Yeah, it's crazy. No one's even reporting on what we spoke about earlier with North Korea and what's going on with their nuclear test. So there's a lot of stuff getting brushed onto the carpet with North Korea. Yeah, that's another subject. Hey, this is a guy that I've heard you mentioned before on the show Carries and zand Nan says, Hijack, this is mclovin. I've heard you referenced him before. Oh, mcvin, Yeah, mclovin was want to He worked with me on on our base at um At Fob Sykes and tell Afar Iraq and Uh mclovin and his brother they both worked for us for my O d A and Um. They have both immigrated to America subsequently and they're here with their families now. It's great. Yeah, I've heard you bring him up. So he says, we we interviewed his brother, you remember, Um, I know we were. We interviewed the U z D guys. That's him, that's brother. I remember. I remember everybody we interview I really do. Um. So okay, that makes sense. Um, and he does ask do you guys have the soft rep T shirt available online? Yes, we do soft rep dot com. There's a store tab right on there, and there's a whole rout. We have a throat punch of the weak shirt. I've a whole bunch of you're also working on like some more like I think, like different kinds of like funny shirts and stuff like that. Weren't we weren't we talking about that with Yeah, I mean the stuff I've seen on there, I've seen for a while. But it's all good. They're all great shirts. So yeah, go to soft rep dot com, buy a shirt, help us out. Um, all right, I guess we'll get to this one last one, will choose, says um. Nice analysis on various issues. Good job, thank you, Um, And I guess we'll wrap it with this question, Jimmy Alfred, what would our the US next step be in Syria? Wow? Yeah, okay, so next step in Syria would be consolidation and withdrawal. I mean probably unless we're playing on staying there for a long time and we want to um, you know, the same way we might put troops in Poland, right, So that it's a it's a it's a like a force, um, like we keep troops in Estonia or Lithuania. And what that does is it projects to the Russians. It says, look, if you invade this country, you're gonna be at war with American soldiers. And so it's um, it's a just stationing troops there, A small number of soldiers, not enough to be provocative, like it's clear this isn't an invasion for Uce, like we're gonna try to invade Russia with this, these two hundred troops, it's just a small force to tell them, Look, if you invade this country, you're you're at war with America. Now, the question is would we be interested in doing that in Syria and what the Kurds called ra Java, this area of northern Syria? Are we going to keep a small number of American troops two hundred Special Forces and support guys there just to tell Turkey and maybe the Syrian regime if you invade this area, you're at war with America too. But I don't know if that's our our long term agenda. I'm not sure if we even have a long term agenda in Syria. I don't I'm not convinced we ever have had one. UM So that might be one option. Maybe that's what we're looking at. UM Or the option could be, Look, we want to UM get the Curds to the table with the Assad regime and reach something and help reach some sort of negotiated settlement. I think that's this is how the Curds perceive it, and my my, and it's how the regime perceives it too, because I've I've fum, I've been with both sides, so I've heard both comments from both sides, and I think both the Kurds and the government, the Syrian government both understand that at a certain point they're going to have to reach a negotiated settlement. And what the Curds want is a semi autonomous area, um. Just like we have states rights in America. They want to have some states rights where the Curds have rights and things like this, and they have some participation in the government. Um. But they understand that what they call Java and those cantons will be folded under a Syrian federal system. Right. So that might be the next step, and maybe America can help push that a little bit further along. But again, I mean it's also fluid. Who knows what the hell? We never seem like we know what the hell we're doing over there, um. And I would say whatever it's like, you know, you say to a young lieutenant in the army, like, look, make a decision or I was told this to make any decision, because any decision is better than no decision, and I feel like in terms of Syria, it's like we're making no decision, hoping like this whole thing is going to blow over, like the Homer Simpson where Homer Simpson goes back to college and he's like, I didn't study for the exam, so I'm just gonna hide under the pile of coats and hope that this whole thing magically blows over. That's a bad strategy. That's that's the worst strategy you can have. Like, let's make a decision about what we want the future to look like and move in that direction. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed this, like it, share it out, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at soft Rep Radio, and uh, I think that's it. Thanks for joining us for this first live stream in a very long time. We enjoyed doing it, enjoyed the answering your questions, and uh, hopefully we will do more of these. Well. I love doing the spotlight interview thing, but it's schill to switch it up as well. Yeah, absolutely, variety is Keith right, Otherwise we all get bored here. Oh yeah, poor man, you've been listening to self Rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. For all of the great content from our veteran journalists. Join us and become a Team Moon member today at soft rep dot com. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio, and be sure to also check out the Power of False podcast hosted by Hurricane Group CEO and Navy Seals sniper instructor Brandon web
Speaker 1: Ah, beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're listening to software Radio special operations, military news and straight talk with the guys and the community. And we are live, or we're at least live on Facebook and Twitch. For some reason, YouTube is being h a pay neck at upload this later if I have to, But yeah, man, plenty of news going on for uh those you know who check out the podcast. We haven't done a live stream like this in a while. Being scotto here, I am the producer of Softwrep Radio for you, I always know that there's people who like check out the live stream or new that type of thing. And Jack Murph, the editor in chief of softwarep dot com. Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while since we've done a live stream. I mean I saw you two days ago. Well, we've been doing a lot of podcasts. Yes, we've been doing two podcasts week, which you could of course subscribe to on Apple Podcasts or the people watching the live stream. But we figured we'd do this because, um, we'd like to get questions from the audience. And you know, if there's any of you checking this out, I know that we're doing this like New and East time, not exactly prime time. But if you happen to be catching this, Who're always happy to answer any questions you may have. Um. Last episode three forty six with Jim Morris, I thought was excellent. Um, this is episode three forty seven. I can't believe where that many episodes time flies, that's for sure. Yeah it does. And and so being that Jim Morris was a Green Beret Vietnam era, I think it's only appropriate to mention the death of Michael Healy, Army major general who led Green Berets in Vietnam dies at Uh. Michael D. Healy and Army major general and highly decorated counterinsurgency expert who retired is the top ranking Green Beret and a legend in special Forces. Died April fourteenth at a hospital in Jacksonville floor to He was ninety one. By the way, this is from Harrison Smith at Washington Post. Um and if you read on one of the first Green Berets to achieve the rank of a general. And I feel like I say this just about every other episode at this point, like we really are losing so many of these guys, and that's why we try to take advantage and we kind of interviewing them and getting their story out there back in back in the day. This plays into the interview we did with Jim Morris. Before Special Forces became a branch, it was very hard for a SF officer to make rank and actually become a general. Um. Now it's a pretty commonplace. Why I shouldn't say common place necessarily, it's still difficult to make General refordless, but um, it's much more common than it was. You know, back in the in the days of the Vietnam days, UM, going to Special Forces was basically career suicide. Yeah, that was interesting hearing Jim Morris talk about that last episode where he said, you know, green Berets were not this same decorated brand. There's no there's no career path. It was kind of like a career dead end. Yeah, from for far as people who they're in their mind they're interested in making rank and climbing the ladder and all that good stuff. Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting we talked about it on the show. UM, speaking of like career after the military, it does seem to be that stereotype that SF guys, um Army rangers. They don't always move on transition to the civilian world the way seals do. And there's no like reason for that that you see, like these seals who become CEOs and I could. I mean, I think there's a couple of things involved there. I think a lot of their guys who come out of the army side aren't necessarily show boating quite frankly. Um. But I also think that it has something to do with the culture. Um. And I've said this before, Like in the Seals, it's different because it's like it's encouraged. That's sort of like individual achievement and entrepreneurial spirit. In the army, I mean in in range of battalion, it's like, if you want to do anything that isn't range of battalion, your chain of command basically treats you like a piece of ship and tells you you'll never amount to anything. Um. When I was in Special Forces and I was getting out, I was told that, you know, n c O. We were n c O s and non commissioned officers, and I was told, hey, you know what n c O really stands for? Right, no chance on the outside I've heard you said before. Yeah, So I mean, if you're telling guys that, and then of course they don't achieve as much when they when they get out of the military because they've been told they won't him out to anything that all you can ever be in life is a is a Green Beret or a ranger or whatever. So for those watching the live stream, I'm gonna be kind of checking um comments and all that. If you have any questions or anything like that, here's your chance to ask them. Uh. Please like this, please share it. We love getting a word out about the show, getting new listeners, um, and that's why we periodically like to do these live streams. But biggest news today Ronnie Jackson withdraws as a VA secretary nominee. Uh. This is from CNN. Rear Admiral Ronnie Jackson is withdrawn as President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. His nomination was hampered by a flurry of allegations about Jackson's professional conduct, which, by the way, before this show, we were like, what are those allegations again? Really? Yeah, because I just saw party animals, I just saw the memo, the actual um not resignation, but his his formal withdraw withdrawal from being a nominee for v A Secretary, And it was kind of boilerplate, like I deny all the accusations that were made against me and all this, and yeah, that was when I was like, what allegations? Because I hadn't been following it me either. And then we looked up the some of these articles that have been published about him the last couple of days, and it's a lot of just getting drunk, and it's like, Bro, I want to party with this dude, Donald Probably it seems like it seems like he has a fun time man. Um. You know, go and get some drinks at the White House and we're getting that uparmored limousine that the president has. We'll do donuts in the front lawn. Tokyo drift that motherfucker, you know. Um. Yeah. Jackson said he was motivated to withdraw from consideration because the allegations against him have become a distraction for Trump and his agenda. And then It's Funny Hour writer Alex was talking about this. Then Trump went on Fox and Friends today and gave his opinion to that. Um, I have there been like I feel like there's been so many v A secretaries in the past, yeah, five six years grinding through them. Yeah, and none of them have been very popular, from Shinseki to now. Like I feel like, uh, yeah, you could probably speak on this better than me. But it's more of like a embedded cultural problem at the v A than just who's the guy at the time. Yeah, like institutional problem that they just can't correct. Um. And it probably has to do with like years and years of you know, culture and going to the lowest bidder and all these other problems. I've actually been to the v A here in Manhattan, and I don't really have anything bad to say about them. Um. It's not as good healthcare, it's not as efficient as like private healthcare, but it works, you know, it pretty much seems to do his job at least that's my experience with them. Um. But that's Nonetheless, there are v A hospitals all around the country where I mean you can pull up story after story after story about corruption and medical malpractice, um, all sorts of issues. Um. So yeah, v A has just really profound problems, and um man, I wouldn't want to be the v A secretary. Seems like, you know, like you're just condemned to commit ritualistic sepacu like cut your guts out, you know, like the samurais used to um. You know, we just keep grinding through these v A secretaries. Yeah, and I know the major thing that's always said is we need to fix this backlog and that that that's not something like yeah, like when when I talk about like the the efficiency UM versus the private sector, it's like, man, if you call v A and you try to make an appointment, you will spend two hours getting bounced around their automated call system, like sending you to this department that department. When you finally get to the one you're supposed to go to to make your appointment, I'm sorry the we're no longer taking voicemail messages. Call again later. Yeah. Fuck. Really, I feel like as a civilian, though, that's not that much different than the crap that you have to deal with and just the private I mean, my experience of the private healthcare system is like you go online, you find a doctor you're looking for, you book the appointment online. It takes like five minutes. Yeah, I just know that there's always been a lot of forms to fill out to get reimbursed for stuff. And all that type of crap. Yeah, when the bills start coming and then you have to negotiate with the doctor's office and insurance company, that can be a pain in the ass. Yeah. Well, and and also just I feel like as a whole, they make you fill out a ton of paperwork can be done much more efficiently, but they don't give a shit about efficiency, which I think I've I've heard people in the medical industry even say I think they do that as a way to to weed out Some people are like, I don't want to fill all this out and then they're not even a submit a claim. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, it seems like a lot of those forms they have you fill out or things that you could, like, you know, do via email or something like that. Yeah, except maybe like your social Security number you don't want to put on the internet, I understand, But most of that stuff, and they have like online web portals all the doctors used today anyway, where they send you your medical forms, you know, via quote unquote portals. So why can't you fill out those forms on their quote unquote secured portal zac doc which is great? I do love that. I don't know if I've used that or not. Well, I guess just also being a civilian, I have a different experience. So um this ties into our interview with Dr Leonard Wong. I thought this was an interesting one, and I saw that our friend Amber Smith, who we just had on UM Army Helicopter Pilot UH put this out there on Twitter and was like, this is great news for the Army. Uh. So this is from Megan Myers and Army Times. The Army just dumped a bunch of mandatory training to free up soldiers time. The Army's top civilian is unloading a pile of training not required by the Defense depart meant in favor of allowing commanders to distribute guidance to their troops on their on their terms. According to a series of memos released in April. The guidance is part of a larger plan to cut the administrative burden on units. Army Secretary Mark Aspert told Army Times in December and roll out again this month. Um So here are the things that they're cutting. They're cutting training programs in travel risk planning, system media awareness training and combating trafficking in persons training. UH. You know, you could speak probably more on if if these were necessary in the first place. I mean, they're all kind of like check the block training, you know, you go through you just click your way through some online training module and check the block. And that's what all that online training really is anyway. It's just so the commanders have their asses covered and they're like, oh, he got the training. You know, so if you crash your car, they can be like, oh, well you got the vehicle safety training. Or if a soldier kills himself, I mean, seriously, I mean, this is how cynical it is. You know, if a soldier commits suicide, the chain of command can be like, he got the suicide to wear news training. It's not our fault, you know. And as strange as this sounds, there was a time, and please go back and listen to the podcast we did with Dr Leonard Wong. We go really in depth on this subject. There was a time when you know, if a soldier was looking depressed, if he was having problems in his unit, if he wasn't performing as expected, that his leadership would look at him and as a person and say like, well, I can tell something's wrong with this kid. And the first sergeant when vitamin you know, come on, kid, come into my office and sit him down and he'd pour a glasses scotch and slide it across the desk and be like, what's got you so blue? Kid? Like that sounds surreal today and our you know, are are you know, hyper sensitive, politically correct culture. But this is how the army used to be. There used to be this human element to it, and you talk to your soldiers and you would know your soldiers. Nowadays, you know, even officers come in and their initial counseling is done via you know, it's like a cut and paste form. They have no face to face interaction with their battalion commander. Nobody gives a shit anymore. And this is why I say the problem the military is having is not necessarily political correctness. A lot of people misidentify the problem. There is political correctness in the military. That's a problem, But the bigger problem is corporatization. And we've had this idea that we can institute corporate quote unquote efficiency um into the military ranks um. And this is where you get all this online training module bullshit, all this other nonsense. And we've stacked the deck. We've given these guys so much mandatory training that are our squad leaders don't have time to train, to coach, teach and mentor these young infantrymen or other mos is and bring them up the way they need to be brought up and learn the skills they need to have. Um. And because they're taking these stupid online training modules that do nothing for force readiness, they do nothing to make are military more agile, more lethal. It's just a drain on them. Um. You know. Another example that was brought up to me recently is DTS BELS, the Defense Travel System. So when you go on temporary duty, you come back and you go into this stupid DTS system and you enter all your information and you put your vouchers in and your receipts and blah blah blah. Back in the day, you used to just tell your chain of command or they would tell you you're going on t D y okay, and there'd be a someone in the personnel office would cut your orders, give it to you. Okay. You come back, you throw a bunch of receipts at them. You shouldn't throw over seats and your personnel people, please don't do that, but you give them the receipts, they do up the paperwork and you get reimbursed. It's all good. Okay. Now do you have this DTS system that soldiers have to slog through and it's one of those things that's designed it's like corporate efficiency quote unquote, So we'll put this burden on the soldier and make him do his own travel paperwork. Does anyone ever look at how much time is wasted making soldiers do this kind of bullshit? And I mean it's not laziness, it's just saying we should have personnel, you know, S one people in the military who do S one stuff. Um, you know, instead of passing the burden onto the soldier and calling it efficiency because it isn't. It's just wasting more time. Um. So this is kind of where we're at with the military right now. And doctor wanged it his sweeping research and white paper with um some other um students graduate students or army work college students. They really did a tremendous job on it. Then you can go look at that paper. It's called um oh ship I think it's called a lying to ourselves and what he what he found and that when he did that research was that not only do we give our soldiers more mandatory training than there are training days in the calendar year, so they're they're at like a hundred and overloaded here. But what he also found, a secondary finding, was that all our officers are reporting up to hire that they are a percent efficient, they're a hundred percent complete on all of that mandatory training, which we know is literally impossible. So what we've done is we've bread and we've cultivated a culture in the military now where it's it became okay to lie, to send up reports to hire and say, yes, we're a d percent in the blue good to go on all mandatory training when we absolutely are not. And what are the repercussions of that? When we um create a culture of lying in the military and it becomes okay to lie to your superiors and say that you're at what are the other effects of that? What does that mean? Um? And that's what his paper explores. So I hope people check that out. But this article and that they're starting to cut some of the mandatory training shows that Dr Wang's research is starting to having a really profound impact on the force, a really positive impact and I'm really happy to see that. That's great. Yeah, and do you think his paper had any effect on this? I think it had a huge effect. Um. I think it went all the way up to the top. I think a lot of middle management, a lot of officers wanted to ignore it and just roll their eyes at it. But I do think that eventually his research was heard and understood, and that there were people, um like the Secretary of the Army um, uh what's his name, Ellsberg? I believe um and UH in the Secretary of Defense, UM, Jim Madis. I think they understand this now. No, it's right here, Secretary, you got it. Secretary Mark Esper, Um, So thank you, Mr Esper. Secretary Esper and UH and Jim Maddie have put this on their plate and they understand that this is an issue and they're trying to resolve it. Yeah, which is good to hear. Maybe we should get him back on at some point and and hear about his reaction to them doing this if they're if they're doing it in the most efficient way, so you know, the change change happened slowly in a big bureaucracy like the Department of Defense. Um, it'll I think you'll start to see the soldier will start to feel an impact over the next you know, six to twelve months. Um, it'll be interesting to gauge that and see, like, have you has your time been freed up? Do you have time to train your soldiers? Now? Yeah? The first great question we have here from brad Manning, and I guess not to be confused with the Bradley mann like the Bradley Manning now Chelsea Manning, unless Chelsea Manning happens to be watching us. Where can I get the shirt Jack is wearing soft rep dot Com. You know what's the funny thing. I have a soft Rep on time on target shirt. I do not have the software. Probably should you probably should, one of the guys on the show, since you produce every single episode. Yeah, so go to soft rep dot com. Uh, shameless plug since you mentioned it, it's right on there. And they're great shirts. I love the way all the soft Rep shirts fits. So that is the answer, bred Um. And like I said, I assume you're not the bread Bradley Manning. Um. All right, this is a great article that Kurt Troeder, a writer did on soft Rep. IRAQ begins air strikes in Syria against ISIS, and Kurt is great on this stuff because of the fact that he's been a volunteer at the pesh Merga, has spent so much time over there. Yeah, so he he knows his stuff. Um, and you should check this out. It's right there, Like I said the title, if you want to look it up. Is Iraq begins air strikes in Syria against ISIS UH. This past week, the Iraq Air Force began carrying out coordinated air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria alongside the Syrian government. A tweet from the Iraqi Air Force read, based on the orders from a Body, the Commander in Chief, our air forces by using F sixteens bombarded ISIS terrorist positions in Syria on the border with the Rock on Thursday, hater all a body. Iraq's Prime minister has hinted that Iraqi military forces may soon be aiding and combating terrorism in Syria earlier this month, According to Brigadier General Yahia Rasul of the Iraqi Air Force, the air strike missions were based out of Iraq and done cross border with the Syrian government's permission. The United States led anti Islamic State Coalition UH provided target intelligence for the strikes for the operational forces. However, the mission was planned and executed by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command. The Iraqi Air Force provided a video later uh that featured an F sixteen fighter jet adorned with a Rocky flag on the tail, staging for a takeoff on a military flight line. Prime Minister hater A A body has tweeted our heroic air force carried out on Thursday in Syria near Iraq border Iraqi border deadly air strikes against Dash's terrorists gangs. Iraq has yet to disclose specific target locations on their exact content contents. A body had ordered air strikes to be carried out in Syria last year in February against ISIS positions as well. Despite a body declaring victory over the Avon state last December, as Massoul was liberated by Iraqi military forces, the tacks from sleeper cells and pockets resistance seem to have increased the alan Bar province in Iraq and deer As azora am I, saying that correct Or region have experienced militant based attacks over the past week. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Kirk Cook has been a hotbed for ISIS based in surgeon activity as well, given its current state of dispute by local nationals. Welcome to the party, pal, Yeah, well, yeah, you work. You've been talking about this on on episodes. I mean, this is handing the power to the Iraqi indigenous population. And well, yeah, in a sense, I don't know if we green lithum or not um. Of course, the um perspective from you know that that so called Arab street is always that America green lithusts. You know, every action Turkey takes, for example, they're like, oh well America, okay, this whether we did or not um, And that's just part of the difficulty in dealing with that region. But it's interesting. You also got the Shia militia's uh that went from Iraq and crossed over into Syria and mucking around. It's what a ship show, all right. I see we're getting a few questions here, so I'll get to this one last article and then um we'll get to your questions. So if you have anything that you want to ask, keep it coming to the live stream right now and like it, share it and um, yeah, any any questions at all. I mean we rarely get to do these, so it doesn't have to be on topic. Um. You know, we we rarely get to do these q and a s, so we're happy to answer anything you have for the podcast or for jack Um or for me. No, this is from South China Morning Post. It's interesting because no one's really reporting on it that you found this. Uh, you know, I don't even know much about the South China Morning Post as a source. I actually, yeah, So here's what the article is. North Korea's nuclear test site has collapsed, and that maybe why Kim Jong un suspended tests. The mountains collapse after a fifth blast last fall has led to the creation of a massive chimney that could leak great you active fall out into the air. Researchers have found North Korea's a mountain nuclear test site has collapsed, but in China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure. To separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue of confirmed which is pretty serious. Um, the collapse after five nuclear blasts maybe why North Korean leader Kim Jong un declared on Friday that he would freeze the Hermit States nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site. One researcher said, the last five of pyongyang six nuclear tests have all been carried out under a mount man tap at the Pungyr pungy Would you say that would be the big bang in Pyongyang? You mentioned it At the pungy Re nuclear test site in North Korea's northwest, our group of researchers found that the most recent blast tour open a hole in the mountain, which then collapsed upon itself. A second group concluded that the breakdown created a chimney that could allow radioactive fall out from the blast zone below to rise into the air. So this is crazy to hear just from a health perspective. People in China. Also, you know Kim Jong un covering his day. So is it? Is it true or is it a deception? And this is part of um, you know, sort of international gamesmanship or brinksmanship. Um. You know, I think they'll be able to confirm it via satellite and via um not not Geiger counters, but you know they have sensors that can test for you know, nuclear tides and all that good stuff. Then see if radiation is really leaking out of there. So I mean I think technically it'll be able to be confirmed, UM for sure one way or the other eventually. UM. But this would be interesting because it doesn't mean that their nuclear facility is defunct now because they destroyed it accidentally. Uh. And that's why they're like, Okay, yeah, we'll suspend nuclear testing because they can't test anymore. So it's like it's already shut off, but now you're gonna make it seem as if you're making a concession. Your Trump will take credit for sure. Sure, and we can get into all of that, but I mean any administration would take credit for it. UM. The So the thing about nuclear underground nuclear testing, I mean, it's the designed to control the radiation, but there's also a theory that you can decouple a nuclear explosion um from uh what would be like seismographs. So if you have it in a big enough underground cavity, UM, then you can test nuclear weapons inside that cavity and it won't show up on on seismic sensors around the world as a nuclear blast. Uh. And I had a professor, UM, Professor Richards, who was a nuclear seismologist, and UM, now I kind of asked him, I was like, you know, what do you make of that? Theory, and you know how academics they won't say as like someone like I would like, that's total bullshit. Man, he's a very astute person. Um and and but the basically in a very academic way, he said, I don't necessarily buy that argument, you know. And uh so it's probably not true that you can decouple a nuclear explosion like that. But nonetheless they were testing underground. Um I mean, how many how many nuclear detonations can you do in the underground cavity before you collapse it. I mean, it seems like it's something that's gonna happen sooner or later. Right, It's just it really is scary to think what we're doing, you know, and that that's also goes into I know it's unrelated, but we always talk about um loring or carbon footprint here in America, and you know that we need to have these agreements with the rest of the world, like I don't think China, and China doesn't give it, especially these regimes like North Korea really care and are willing to go on board with doing things that are you know, less harmful to the environment. When you hear about these nuclear tests, it's hilarious. The way we negotiate with some of these countries and try to couple with them or deal with them. Um and just sort of like hand ringing that we do in the West, and like, especially like the the American left. I feel like looking at them sometimes and I'm like, all the things that you value the most, the rest of the world values the least. Like you don't think the Chinese are willing to buy carbon footprints if they The Chinese don't care about environmentalism, they don't care about racism, they care not a damn about LGBT rights. All these things are just like superfluous to them. They do not give a ship from their point is the point of view. They want to harmonize the entire region around the Han Chinese, which the the elite class of that country see them as the master race. There's it's just hilarious. We're not even like thinking of each other on equal terms. Um. And China represents itself as this sort of like positive force for good in the world, and a lot of Americans buy that for some reason, which actually brings us into the I believe is a Washington Post story about Chinese student spies. Yes, yeah, and I had written about that years ago, and people were like, you're a racist, Jack Murphy. How can you say that, How can you say that these Chinese students are or spies. That's just xenophobic. And it's like, no, no, this is really how it works. Like if you're from the mainland, you know, it's quid pro quo. I mean, you're coming back home and it's just understood that you work for the homeland. That's how it is. Um and and all that started for me. I didn't know that much about how how these things work and how Chinese espionage functions. Um. But I was at a class in college and uh I was in so it's a little study group who are studying for a final examin I was with three Chinese students and really nice people. I liked them. Um, but we've gett into talking about like politics and stuff like that, because it was like it was a course in international politics, I think. And I asked them about full on gong, which is very controversial in China. And I asked them, you know, just your opinion, you know, no judgment here, you know, do you think they're a persecuted group or do you think they're really up to no good? And brother, you could have heard a pin drop in that room, like you could hear the second hand on the clock like. And I realized after the fact, is the three Chinese students in that class, they're all afraid to talk because they're all afraid that the other people in the room are going to inform on them back to their home country. And so this story got ignored for a long time. But I see this as a positive development is the American press over the last couple of years has finally started talking about how China poses a threat to America. UM, poses a threat to democracy. China is never going to democratize, That's just a pipe dream. And UM, the Chinese espionage happening right here in America. Finally it's become an acceptable topic for conversation in the mainstream media. So I am glad to see that the Washington Post is picking up on that, and I will issue a correction here. Carlos Figaro Washington says it was the Washington Time. It was the Washington Times, thank you. So according to Carlos, UM, all right, so I'll get to some questions here. I feel like we've covered a lot of news going on this week in the community. UM. Let's see here, Gene Fornsworth, you love what is j I think winning means in the Middle East? What does win look like? So I guess he means from an American perspective, an American foreign policy perspective. I think winning would mean stable governments UM that are at least UM political in nature, rational in nature. UM are willing to engage politically in the rest of the world, rather than UM act as UM terror terror states like we saw in Afghanistan Gaddaffi would engage in acts of terrorism, UM, things like this. UM. The winning might be in the Middle East. It might be some form of political Islam. I mean a lot of people don't want to hear that, but it might be a form of you know, UM, you know, politics informed by Islam, not necessarily Shariah, not crazy stuff like you see in Saudi Arabia, UM, but who are our allies, but a more pragmatic form of political Islam that is willing to engage politically and diplomatically with their neighbors in the region, with Israel, with the United States in the West, and we'll have some sort of you know, give and take and normal diplomatic relations. UM. So I think from that perspective, from an American foreign policy perspective, that's the best we can hope for is stable rational states DOT lean more or less towards democracy. Might not it's not going to be American style democracy, but some indigenous type of democracy in the region. Um, whoever can move the Middle East in that direction will be the hero of our age. Uh, you know, actually accomplishing that as a whole other story. Yeah, yeah, it's very true. Um, And we've talked about in the previous podcasts, like staying there for generations. How do you make an impact? Nobody? Nobody has any answers, I mean, and I don't. I don't have all the answers either. You know, let's just be real, all right, Scott Fisher Ian, I need to send you a list of metal bands to check out. Yeah, feel free softwarepp dot radio at stop rep dot com. Jack looking forward to your memoir. Thank you. Yeah, Yeah, it's uh, we're going into the editing process now, make some revisions, add some things maybe I don't, I don't know. Well, we'll go. We're gonna start getting into that process and going through that nice all right, Brad Manning says he is not that Brad Manning, which is uh oh alright, Mark, Comma, Larry, Am I going to be okay in uh in Turkey on the holidays this year from the United Kingdom. Uh, be careful. Don't don't go to like big public gatherings, you know, I mean, go have a good time. You know. I wouldn't tell people not to go to Turkey. Um. You know, even though I have, I'm probably not welcome there um because of some of this stuff I've done well well, my both my wife and I have done a lot of reporting on the Kurds and we've hung out with different Kurdish groups that Turkey is not does not hold in high regard. Um. But you know, for the you know, the rest of the public, I mean, go to Turkey while you can before that country backslides another twenty five years. UM. I would just avoid like large public gatherings, Like I said, don't don't go to protests things like that because of bombings. But you should be okay, cool, all right? Uh yeah, I don't live in fear. That's you know, if if that's something that you really want to do. Uh. Same Brad Manning, what were your favorite weapon while in service. Oh my favorite weapon. Let me think here. I mean, I was very fond of my SR sniper rifle. UM three three. You can't have one of those in New York. You can't have any of these in New York. I mean the three wind meg very nice gun. Um. I mean the MA Deuce is a classic. I mean that's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot. But I was, you know, uh eighteen bravo, So I got to shoot all the guns. It was fun. You still, you don't really shoot any of those anymore though, I know, because I live in the city, I don't have that many of you know, there's people who travel to p A. Yeah, I could travel every weekend if I was that motivated to go and shoot. Um. If I lived in a different place, I probably would take up some sort of like um, I don't know, competitive marksmanship, you know, or something like that. You know, I know a lot of guys who are into that. It's a cool hobby. I was listening to Kohley on now Air, the guy who works with the n r A on Joe Rogan's podcast, and he does a lot of that, like three guns all that. Yeah, Because he was saying that his dream as a kid was to be a professional basketball player, and he was like, so I'm very into um you know, I guess, including what that athleticism was shooting and he got into it later on life. Really good interview with that guy. I'd actually love to get him on soft Rep. I was even saying, Scott Whittner from the load out room, like it'd be cool to have him on and do like a gear talk type of thing. He's a really cool guy and smart guy. Didn't know I didn't know he's a lawyer. Oh no, I didn't know that either. There's a lot of stuff out there now for people are interested in competitive marksmanship, like all these ipsick competitions, and it seems like that that sport has gotten bigger and bigger, um over I guess over the last decade or so. There's a lot of opportunities out there for people who are interested in taking that up. Awesome, all right, Um, let's see, I don't know who this person is, but Carries and Zandy Nan says, Hi, my brother from another mother. Jack, Hello, Chris Thornton. Jack, what do you think about the escalating tensions between Turkey and Greece? I mean, yeah, the g and c Um. Well, the tensions have always been there right over Cyprus, over these islands and the Aegean. Um. I don't know if I'm prepared to give like a total like geopolitical breakdown of what's happening, but I think it's all emblematic of what we've talked about before. How Urdawuan has these neo Ottomani ambitions and they see the entire surrounding area as part of the new Ottoman Empire. Um. So it's like, man, are they gonna go and you know, wage war against bell Right again? You know, are they going to try to take the city, take eastern Europe? How's that going to go down? Howere? You know, where does this end for Urbiwan? Because it's always a question of what do you do for an encore right if this is your form of legitimacy, this sort of um insane blending of Islamism in Turkish nationalism, where is it going to go? Um? You know, the Greek government I was told was actually the Greek military was on high alert because they were expecting an impending attack from Turkey. I mean, that's insane that these two, you know, two countries in NATO that are ostensibly both part of Europe. I don't want to start I know there's a lot of a lot of tension there. I don't want to start a fistfight about which countries belong in the EU and which don't. I know, you have a bad economy, Greece, it's not your faults. Okay, Well we're moving on. We're moving on. UM. But yeah, those tensions are gonna keep building. And I mean, I think it would be better for you know, some of these supernational structures like NATO, like the European Union, UM, with America playing a sort of vanguard role, to try to step in and try to dial that back now if possible, um, because it's gonna get worse and worse, there's no doubt about that. HM. And then how long before there's a real conflagration in the Aegean and you have Turkish troops, you know, having firefights with Greek troops. Um, all right, Scott Fisher, what's del Gotto up to? I don't know, you'd have to ask him. Uh, let's see what else we have here. Thank you for the softrep T shirts. Oh l l R R guys, thank you for the soft rup T shirts. Oh, they White Reaction Regiment in the Philippines. Yeah. Yeah, we gave him a big box of T shirts. I handed off to UM one of their friends in Las Vegas at the shot show, and they gave me a plaque which is very nice. Is really cool, um uh with some some memorabilia from the Battle of Marrow we um. But yeah, the Filipino Special Operation Asians units are They're really good guys. Awesome, all right, Jared lee uzy question where Jack is someone who has served in both units? Are s F or rangers more likely to deploy in small teams? Uh? Special Forces is much more likely to deploy in small team because it's designed to function as an O d A. A twelve man team is the maneuver element of Special Forces um SO. They're designed to go and work in austere environments and a decentralized environment. UM Rangers are designed to work as a platoon or higher um. You know, you could deploy a platoon, you could deploy a company, you could deploy a battalion. Um. There have been circumstances where like in Panama where the entire regiment deployed and jumped in um SO. Yeah, two different jobs. Different organizational structures. I don't think rangers would ever be deployed as less than a platoon, at least not to not to combat. I can't see that happening alright. Um, and our friend Shannon Miller, who's been on the for US says, sign up for the Department of State travel warnings for Turkey. We'll tell you of the places to avoid inside Turkey. Don't travel to the east in Turkey. So that's that's definitely some good advice. Um Oh, I have no idea what this question is, Michael s Pezel, what you see more places to go back with God? All things are b I have been trying. I don't know what that even means. Go with God, brother, go with God. Yeah, well, if you have anything else, shoot them over you know where. This is kind of a shorter episode because we went over to We went two hours with Jim Morris and this is Facebook Live. So I feel like I should have had multiple rants prepared to like just like a little notebook, like flipping them out, like Okay, here's my rant on this subject. Yeah, but we just kind of wanted to do a news roundup type of thing. Um, as I should mention you guys. There's a you guys, there's only one club out there with gear handpicked by special operations military veterans from several branches, and that of course is Create Club. Past items we've had in our premium crates have been an E d C medikit put together by Benghazi survivor and Army ranger Chris Tonto Piranto, and a ballistic shield insert for your backpack made by cry Precision. Create Club is really stepping up its game right now. It's progresses by putting out custom products that you're not going to find anywhere else. Scott Whittner has been a big part of that. Um, we have different tiers of membership depending on how prepared you want to be, and gift options are available as well. You can check that all out at Create Club dot Us. Once again, that's Create Club dot Us. Yeah. I mean I get the Create Club sent to me and um, it's like grown and leaps and bounds. It's awesome. Yeah, I mean there's some really cool stuff in there now. Yeah. I I've always loved I mean the premium Create especially there's always really awesome stuff in there that's just practical and that you'll be able to use UM for your dog owners. Check this out. You're gonna love this. We just launched Kuna UM. Some of you who have signed up for Kuna may have gotten your first package just now, which is great. UM. We have a team of trained canine handlers picking out a box for your dog each month of healthy treats and training aids and the custom build it for your dog. So it's Kuna Dog, Kuna dot Dog SeeU and a dot d O G. And if you're enjoying that first If you're enjoying that first box, let us know. Sorry, I'm just looking through the comments as well on here. There's just so much stuff coming in. Although we don't have YouTube up, I'll have to re upload to YouTube UM. But we are on Twitch and on Facebook uh. And as a reminder for those listening and watching the live stream, for a limited time, you can receive a fifty percent discounted membership to the spec Ops Channel, our channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews covering the most exciting military content today, which include training cell and we also have the spec Ops channel app developed by Chris in the Philippines speaking the Philippines. UM for iOS Android will be available in June, and that's spec Ops channel dot com and also on the spec Ops channel the new documentary series The Divide. Yeah, they just did the first episode is the first episode on there already, I believe. So yeah, yea. So it's uh, it's me hosting it. And we went into the March for Our Lives protest here in New York City, and um, you know, we interviewed all sorts of people. We interviewed you know, high school students, teachers, um, to run of the mill protesters, you know, people who live in in the city who came out the protest guns. We interviewed pro n r A people, We interviewed you know, the MAGA crew, the MAGA people that make America great again, hats on, including Kanye who's rocket head lately. We did not we did not interview Kanye, but we we made an effort to try to cover as many different side to the issue as we could. And um, the concept of the documentary is just that that instead of you know, hearing it from a talking head like someone like me, Um, are you really a talking head? Though? Well, I could become a talking head if I just like lecture you, if if I, you know, get my cell phone out and I sit in the front seat of my car and I just go on rants every day, I would become a talking head. Um, but you hear from the people who are there, and I think if you watch that documentary, it'll give you a good idea of what type of people showed up at that protest, what their thoughts are, and what they were. Yes, so check that out. The divide on the spec Ops channel, it's spec ops channel dot com. Uh, only five hours a month right now. I don't know how long we're running that. So if you want to join or become a team, remember and you'll get it. Um included wrapping things up here, I see a couple more questions coming in, so I'll shoot, I'll get to those and then we'll call it a show. Chris Thornton, Um, I've posted several articles on Sam Rock Sam Rock, and Jack has written on the issue. So, Jack, do you have any new in full on all the seventh Group guys getting in serious legal problems? Um. I've had some conversations often maybe leave it at that, but no, I don't have any other additional information. I know the unit is trying to grapple with it and deal with some of these things. UM. You know, they got their work cut out for them unfortunately. UM, but we'll see how it goes. UM. All right, Bred Manning once again, Jack Murphy, when you expect to go back out and do more news type stuff overseas and what are your thoughts on Africa? I don't have any plans right now. UM. I have to see what's interesting, what's under reported. UM. I have Actually I want to send some of my writers. They have some ideas about some different hotspots around the world. I'd like to shoot them out to UM sometime this year. I don't have any plans right at this moment. I think the next thing for me is, um actually going on my honeymoon. So yeah, I'm taking a little bit of a k Asian time, going to be in uh in Europe, and then my wife and I are taking our honeymoon. But you know, my my wife is a journalist. I am what I am. We're gonna go to some places that are a little bit off the beaten path as far as honeymoons. We're not going to Tahiti or anything like that. UM. So maybe they'll come back, who knows. Maybe I'll come back with a story from there, um, both to figure out who's gonna be here while you're not here. It would be like a month without you. Yeah, well I can still call in, we can do it like that and calling on sky Yeah I know. Um, but yeah, it will be probably like a month or so, maybe five weeks that I'll be out. Um. So that yeah, that's that. But as far as like, yeah, doing another reporting trip would be interesting. It would be interesting to go back to Syria, to northern Syria again, um, because as the war matures, it's interesting to see how the Kurds evolve in that region and how they're trying to create their own system of governance and will that system of government survive. So it's sort of like the post war environment and what that looks like. Um. But there's a lot of interesting areas in the world, a lot of interesting things going on. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff going on in Central and South America. Nobody's reporting on its Yeah, it's crazy. No one's even reporting on what we spoke about earlier with North Korea and what's going on with their nuclear test. So there's a lot of stuff getting brushed onto the carpet with North Korea. Yeah, that's another subject. Hey, this is a guy that I've heard you mentioned before on the show Carries and zand Nan says, Hijack, this is mclovin. I've heard you referenced him before. Oh, mcvin, Yeah, mclovin was want to He worked with me on on our base at um At Fob Sykes and tell Afar Iraq and Uh mclovin and his brother they both worked for us for my O d A and Um. They have both immigrated to America subsequently and they're here with their families now. It's great. Yeah, I've heard you bring him up. So he says, we we interviewed his brother, you remember, Um, I know we were. We interviewed the U z D guys. That's him, that's brother. I remember. I remember everybody we interview I really do. Um. So okay, that makes sense. Um, and he does ask do you guys have the soft rep T shirt available online? Yes, we do soft rep dot com. There's a store tab right on there, and there's a whole rout. We have a throat punch of the weak shirt. I've a whole bunch of you're also working on like some more like I think, like different kinds of like funny shirts and stuff like that. Weren't we weren't we talking about that with Yeah, I mean the stuff I've seen on there, I've seen for a while. But it's all good. They're all great shirts. So yeah, go to soft rep dot com, buy a shirt, help us out. Um, all right, I guess we'll get to this one last one, will choose, says um. Nice analysis on various issues. Good job, thank you, Um, And I guess we'll wrap it with this question, Jimmy Alfred, what would our the US next step be in Syria? Wow? Yeah, okay, so next step in Syria would be consolidation and withdrawal. I mean probably unless we're playing on staying there for a long time and we want to um, you know, the same way we might put troops in Poland, right, So that it's a it's a it's a like a force, um, like we keep troops in Estonia or Lithuania. And what that does is it projects to the Russians. It says, look, if you invade this country, you're gonna be at war with American soldiers. And so it's um, it's a just stationing troops there, A small number of soldiers, not enough to be provocative, like it's clear this isn't an invasion for Uce, like we're gonna try to invade Russia with this, these two hundred troops, it's just a small force to tell them, Look, if you invade this country, you're you're at war with America. Now, the question is would we be interested in doing that in Syria and what the Kurds called ra Java, this area of northern Syria? Are we going to keep a small number of American troops two hundred Special Forces and support guys there just to tell Turkey and maybe the Syrian regime if you invade this area, you're at war with America too. But I don't know if that's our our long term agenda. I'm not sure if we even have a long term agenda in Syria. I don't I'm not convinced we ever have had one. UM So that might be one option. Maybe that's what we're looking at. UM Or the option could be, Look, we want to UM get the Curds to the table with the Assad regime and reach something and help reach some sort of negotiated settlement. I think that's this is how the Curds perceive it, and my my, and it's how the regime perceives it too, because I've I've fum, I've been with both sides, so I've heard both comments from both sides, and I think both the Kurds and the government, the Syrian government both understand that at a certain point they're going to have to reach a negotiated settlement. And what the Curds want is a semi autonomous area, um. Just like we have states rights in America. They want to have some states rights where the Curds have rights and things like this, and they have some participation in the government. Um. But they understand that what they call Java and those cantons will be folded under a Syrian federal system. Right. So that might be the next step, and maybe America can help push that a little bit further along. But again, I mean it's also fluid. Who knows what the hell? We never seem like we know what the hell we're doing over there, um. And I would say whatever it's like, you know, you say to a young lieutenant in the army, like, look, make a decision or I was told this to make any decision, because any decision is better than no decision, and I feel like in terms of Syria, it's like we're making no decision, hoping like this whole thing is going to blow over, like the Homer Simpson where Homer Simpson goes back to college and he's like, I didn't study for the exam, so I'm just gonna hide under the pile of coats and hope that this whole thing magically blows over. That's a bad strategy. That's that's the worst strategy you can have. Like, let's make a decision about what we want the future to look like and move in that direction. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed this, like it, share it out, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at soft Rep Radio, and uh, I think that's it. Thanks for joining us for this first live stream in a very long time. We enjoyed doing it, enjoyed the answering your questions, and uh, hopefully we will do more of these. Well. I love doing the spotlight interview thing, but it's schill to switch it up as well. Yeah, absolutely, variety is Keith right, Otherwise we all get bored here. Oh yeah, poor man, you've been listening to self Rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. For all of the great content from our veteran journalists. Join us and become a Team Moon member today at soft rep dot com. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio, and be sure to also check out the Power of False podcast hosted by Hurricane Group CEO and Navy Seals sniper instructor Brandon web
